I shot this through the window a few days ago. I loved how he was cleaning himself up. It wasn’t all that warm that day. Amazing that they don’t mind getting wet in the cold weather. All comments and critiques welcome.
Canon 5D Mark IV, Sigma 150-600 mm at 562 mm, f8, 1/1600, ISO (auto, rest of settings manual) 2000. Edited in LR and Topaz AI Clear.
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I can’t believe how clean you keep your windows! This is great. I absolutely love the monochromatic background, and the framing of the bird by the branches looks great. The OOF background branches do not compete at all with the primary subject. I sure am enjoying this one Shirley!
My only suggestion is to consider cropping the upper right corner as the branch comes in and out of the frame and pulls my eye a bit. Also, the vignette is just a bit strong for my taste (and may be adding some darkening to that branch pulling my eye a bit)…but that’s my taste and not yours necessarily. I think the framing of the subject by the naturally darker limbs/branches provides some vignette as it is.
Excellent pose, very nice colour. I like the positioning higher up in the frame. I would have wished for a bit more shallow DOF to blur the busy background, but OTOH, the bush does provide context.
A really nice photo with a lovely bg color. It is a type of sparrow I think.
I also like the vertical composition. I wonder if brightening the facial area would highlight the bird and eyes a bit more.
Well done on the focus with nice details in the eyes. Lots of complimentary colors.
Shirley - i love this little guy, he looks like he is not really enjoying the cooler weather. And I’m jealous you can get a photo through your windows. The color palette is perfectly suited to this little bird and the weather. I do like the vertical composition and agree that maybe a bit more shallow DOF would help to make the bird pop more. Really nice capture.
Ditto on the clean windows! The colors in this are just wonderful. I love that the bird’s feathers are a bit spiky from his bath. It’s nicely framed with the branches.
Thank you, Jim, Jaapv. David, Linda and Bonnie for taking the time to view and comment. I haven’t had time to try to edit with the wonderful suggestions, but will try to get the changes done and post it. As for the clean windows, I have to confess, when shooting fairly close to glass (your camera focuses on the bird and not the window) your windows don’t have to be squeaky clean. I do clean them more frequent that the rest of the windows in the house just to be sure nothing messes up the shot. Right now my husband’s memory is fading and so I am unable to go off to NWR, or places like that to shoot, so I make do with what I can do, and that is shoot in my yard. Again, thanks so much for helping me to improve this shot.
David, this is a Mockingbird. He thinks he owns our yard and tries his best to run all other birds away, but most come right back.
I think I made all the changes you kind folks offered. What do you think? Do they help? Did I over do anything? I used the blur tool in LR and tried to get some of the out of focus branches to be more blurred so they wouldn’t be a distraction. Look natural?
Hi Shirley,
I like this image as it shows a typical habitat but the bird stands out well enough to keep my attention. I do believe I prefer the vignetting in the first image though to help focus on the subject. He looks like the kind of bully mockingbirds we have over here too.
I think it was a good idea to crop closer as it cuts some the the distracting branches. While the vignette works in the first image, the closer crop still displays the environment well.
